Bethesda Softworks announces the availability of Brink in North America, adding that those in Europe should expect the release of Splash Damage's first-person shooter on Friday. As well as being available in stores for Windows, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3, the Windows edition of the game is also available via digital distribution on Direct2Drive, Impulse, and Steam. Here's a bit on what it offers:

Brink allows you to develop your character playing alone, with your friends, and against others online. Featuring dynamic battlefields, extensive customization options, and an innovative control system, Brink lets you choose your side, Security or Resistance, as you engage in heated battle for control of the Ark. Once an experimental, self-sufficient and 100%"green" habitat, the Ark is now home to the original founders, their descendants, and thousands of refugees made homeless by the rapid rise of the Earth's oceans.

DarkCntry wrote on May 11, 2011, 04:14:Really hating the Objective 2-star solo Challenge...I can never seem to get the hackbox going simply because the enemy bots are crawling all over the damn thing...I need my sling!

You can also play challenges online cooperatively.

Yes, you can, but you cannot unlock anything via that route, which is rather disappointing but understandable.

Still playing. Still love it. I can't believe people buy anything in this day and age without researching it first. Thinking that the single player campaign was different than the mulitplayer campaign is due to lack of reading about the game. So many people complaining about that, but the info has been out there forever.

There are some bugs, but they are much more annoyances than game breakers. (Unless you run an ATI card, I hear.) My turrets refuse to lock on to enemies most of the time. The sound goes out for everyone on the Refuel map. One time I couldn't see any enemies on a co-op map. That's the extent of my problems so far. I've purchased many games where they were completely unplayable for a large chunk of people on day one.

Messed around with the SP campaign portion of the game last night, and hated it at first, but it grew on me. As people keep stating...it is bursting with potential, that just hasn't quite been reached yet.

Someone else already pointed this out, but the Sound Design is horrible. Grenades sound like a small book being dropped on the floor. I'll toss one, take cover and more often than not I'm waiting, wondering if the nade has gone off yet. Sound frequently cut in and out for no reason. The graphic effect for nades exploding is also horrible.

Maybe I'm in the minority here, but why the fuck does every shooter these days have to load up the screen with indicators? It's freaking annoying, distracting and unnecessary.

Bot AI, is absolutely atrocious, worst I've seen in at least 10 years. While the argument is made the game is to be played online with other people and the SP is just for learning & training. Learning and training with bot AI this bad is simply a waste of time. Time and time again I'd see enemy bots run in a group allowing themselves to be surrounded by my friendly AI and nobody would shoot at one another. Frequently saw bots lose their pathing and get stuck, or simply pace back and forth in a room. Ridiculous and unacceptable.

Ultimately, gameplay...is old school...and I like it. But it still needs work, work I'm not entirely sure will ever happen.

Operatives who have unlocked the "homing beacon" ability must iron-sight enemies to tag them for everyone else.

Homing beacon does a lot more than just let you tell friend from foe. It highlights them and let's you track them just like you can see objectives through walls and stuff. It's rather useless for just telling friends from foes though, because it takes a few seconds to take effect, and doesn't last very long. I just want to be able to tell who's on what team without having to check for a nametag or something. Make it easier like TF2.

Oh, here's the Homing Beacon ability description:

Homing Beacon allows you to place a red outline on an enemy by Iron Sighting on them for several seconds. This will allow the enemy to be seen by all your teammates, even through walls. The outline only lasts for a few seconds. Homing Beacon lets you reveal enemy operatives in disguise.

Also, I read that you can use homing beacon even while disguised. You don't have a crosshair, but if you keep them in the middle of your screen, it will tag them.

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts." -- Bertrand Russell (I think...)

Note to self: next time a game is marketed a "combining" singleplayer, multiplayer and coop, what that means is it has no single player. If I would have known this I wouldn't have pre ordered, but I guess that's my own stupidity.

nin wrote on May 11, 2011, 09:32:

Wow Im really glad I didnt give in to temptation and buy this on impulse. Thanks for all the comments guys, will wait a few months to see if they fix up the game add more maps and the like.

It's not a bad game, I've played a hell of a lot worse. It's just not as good as some of us hoped. Hopefully a patch or 3 will fix that, along with adding some more maps. But I'm not holding my breath.

Can the community create mods for this game? I'm hoping some come out that add a real single player campaign. The multiplayer is fun, but it does feel like a huge mess. One thing I absolutely hate is that I can't easily tell who is on my team or not (I don't see red glows around anyone). I have to look for name tags.

Having fun though. I'm up to level 5 and finally unlocked the engineer stuff.

DarkCntry wrote on May 11, 2011, 04:14:Really hating the Objective 2-star solo Challenge...I can never seem to get the hackbox going simply because the enemy bots are crawling all over the damn thing...I need my sling!

Wow Im really glad I didnt give in to temptation and buy this on impulse. Thanks for all the comments guys, will wait a few months to see if they fix up the game add more maps and the like.

It's not a bad game, I've played a hell of a lot worse. It's just not as good as some of us hoped. Hopefully a patch or 3 will fix that, along with adding some more maps. But I'm not holding my breath.

Sounds more like a free to play game (with a lot of potential) was somehow marketed and sold as a full AAA type game.

That's not a fair comment at all and sounds totally uninformed. The multiplayer is more than strong enough to stand on it's own. The only thing I take issue with is how the SP was played up in preview material despite being an obvious afterthought. That's more an issue with them trying to get console owners to buy it than PC users I suspect.

All of that being said, there is no excuse for launching the game in this state. This game needed another month of fixes in the tank and it's surprising because they even moved the launch up a week. Once it gets fixed up it will be a fine multiplayer shooter.

Equip a grenade launcher, knock 'em down and mop up, then attach the box and scamper away. That was the only challenge that really gave me trouble.

I'm enjoying the game quite a bit, having put 5 or 6 hours into it yesterday. There's frequently more than one way around a map, though most people don't seem to have caught onto that fact yet. My favorite thing to do so far has been take a back route with the grenade launcher, knock everyone down in a 'choke' point, and then watch my team roll through.

Weapon sounds are awesome, and the level of weapon and ability customization is great.

My issues so far: Yes, the browser is weak. I also want to be able to right-click to go back a layer in the menus, instead of having to hit that damn back button. The game runs like ass on my 5850 with the hotfix drivers (Core i7-920 and 6GB ram on Win7 64). I've also got some concerns over the classes, but I think that's more a matter of having not played enough yet.

Really hating the Objective 2-star solo Challenge...I can never seem to get the hackbox going simply because the enemy bots are crawling all over the damn thing...I need my sling!

You don't have to stand next to the box during the whole hacking process. You can take cover while hacking from a distance. It'll take longer but you won't die.

Well, that was never the issue, I could easily get around the corner quickly enough, it's just that getting the box on was the problem

I might just break down and either wait for SD to tweak the bot balance, or create a new character. I really don't want to create a new character just to get past that single challenge, feels like cheating doing it to lower the bot AI.

Wowbagger_TIP wrote on May 11, 2011, 00:42:96 USD for Brink, or most any other game, is really overpriced. I'd just resign myself to being 2 years behind the gaming curve and only buy games that are on sale for about 25% of the launch price.

It's done by the publishers iirc (Valve can't force them to sell at a single worldwide price), they price the game similar to what the box sells for in the store.

Back when the AUD was about 60 US cents, the price disparity + shipping + local retailers take made a lot more sense. These days, we're at 108 US cents and the price hasn't shifted + digital delivery eliminates shipping costs and replaces them with negligible bandwidth costs (ie. my ISP mirrors steam so there is zero upload cost to Valve after the initial master copy is sent out).

Hey if they can patch away the clunky controls (Mirror's Edge style parkour this game is not!) and add more maps, balance the weapons, fix all the completely obvious choke points that prevent most maps from actually being very fun, and for god sake introduce a server browser, I'd give this game a 8/10.

There already is a server browser. You just go to Free Play and then Search. As of this post, there are 541 servers up.

My biggest issue with the game right now is that it runs like ass on my ATI card. There are also gridlines on every texture. ATI released a hotfix driver that supposedly fixed these issues but I already have those drivers installed.